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Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders (Bloomsbury Publishing)

On 22 February 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln is laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, his father Abraham arrives at the cemetery, alone, under cover of darkness.

Over the course of that evening, Abraham Lincoln paces the graveyard unsettled by the death of his beloved boy, and by the grim shadow of a war that feels as though it is without end. Meanwhile, Willie is trapped in a state of limbo between the dead and the living – drawn to his father with whom he can no longer communicate, existing in a ghostly world populated by the recently passed and the long dead.

Unfolding in the graveyard over a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death, grief and the deeper meaning and possibilities of life.

The full list of winners of the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults is:

Margaret Mahy Book of the Year (prize: $7,500) and Russell Clark Award for Illustration (prize: $7,500)

Snark Being a true history of the expedition that discovered the Snark and the Jabberwock . . . and its tragic aftermath illustrated and written (after Lewis Carroll)
by David Elliot
Otago University Press

Picture Book Award: Prize $7,500

That’s Not a Hippopotamus! by Juliette MacIver and illustrated
by Sarah Davis
Gecko Press

Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction: Prize $7,500

My New Zealand Story: Bastion Point
by Tania Roxborogh
Scholastic New Zealand

Copyright Licensing NZ Award for Young Adult Fiction: $7,500

The Severed Landby Maurice Gee
Penguin Random House (Penguin)

Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction: Prize $7,500Jack and Charlie: Boys of the bushby Jack Marcotte and Josh James Marcotte
Penguin Random House (Puffin)

A biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.

Born in the “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: “I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that’ve been there since ’68 quake.” Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town’s most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

A universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment, the prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. The author’s portrayal of hard physical tasks in conjunction with the mental effort required to carry on in the face of everyday obstacles and heartbreak is a thing of beauty.

“Coming Rain is a universal story of love and aspiration, betrayal and disappointment. The prose is masterful, simple and moving. The characters are utterly believable and complex in their ordinariness. It was a book that all three judges came across joyfully and read with the ease of those who know they’re in the hands of a confident writer.” Jill Rawnsley, convenor of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Fiction category